In an uplink coordinated multipoint transmission (CoMP) technology, multiple intra-base station cells or multiple inter-base station cells are used to jointly receive and decode uplink data of user equipment (UE), to increase an uplink rate of the UE.
Specifically, uplink data of UE may be received by multiple cells. The uplink data is received by means of exchange between the cells, so as to implement joint data receiving by the multiple cells, and increase an uplink rate of a user. For example, it is assumed that a serving cell of the UE is a cell 0, coordinating cells of the UE are cells 1 to K, and transmission channels for data exchange exist between the cell 0 and the cells 1 to K. When the UE performs an uplink service, the cell 0 receives uplink data sent by the UE, and the cells 1 to K also receive the uplink data sent by the UE. The cells 1 to K send, to the cell 0 by using the transmission channels, the uplink data received by the cells 1 to K, and the cell 0 jointly receives the uplink data received by the cell 0 from the UE and the uplink data received by the cell 0 from the cells 1 to K, to perform joint demodulation and decoding to determine whether the uplink data is correctly received.
However, the uplink data of the UE needs to be received and decoded within a specified time. Therefore, a strict requirement is imposed on a data exchange latency between the cells. Once the data sent by the coordinating cell to the serving cell cannot arrive in time, the serving cell cannot jointly receive the uplink data within a specified time for joint demodulation and decoding. Consequently, when joint data receiving cannot be performed when an exchange latency between the cells is large, the uplink rate of the user cannot be increased.